Peter Jackson’s movie adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien’s fantasy epic,The Lord of the Rings, is one of the biggest successes in the history of film, both commercially and critically. His three-part masterpiece, including the Best Picture-winningReturn of the King, will live forever as possibly the greatest movie trilogy of all time. At the very least, it will forever retain that spot in the hearts of nerds like me. Keeping that in mind, it seems hard to believe that a movie version ofThe Hobbit, Tolkien’s prequel (well, okay. It’s not actually a prequel) toThe Lord of the Rings, would be difficult to get off the ground. And yet, that’s just what’s happening.
To a deafening lack of surprise, James Cameron announced the start of filming on an as-yet-untitled movie that is being referred to simply as “Avatar 2.” Cameron has said he doesn’t particularly like the “Avatar 2” title since, as he says “he’s not an avatar anymore, is he?” True. Well, then, what will the point of the movie be, you may ask? Well, besides making absurd buckets of money, Cameron said he intends to focus on the oceans of his created planet of Pandora, as well as on the spirituality of his created race, the Na’vi. Of course, this being James “go big or go home” Cameron, there will be much, much more than that, in eye-watering CGI.
Sadly, he only rocks the Connery beard
for the first scene or two.
Most thriller pieces fall into one of two categories:the more action packed version, focusing on using lots of showy gunfire, fights, car chases; and the more psychological one, focusing on examining one character. The first one is fast paced, high adrenaline stuff that if done well both excites and entertains, but often the action takes away too much from the story it is trying to tell. But under no conditions should you go toThe American expecting this type of movie, because while it is certainly a thriller, it falls decisively into the second thriller category, perhaps you would call it a psychological thriller, and here character development and plot structure are key. This explains the sedate pace and brooding tone, instead of flash-bang action.
The American, starring George Clooney, is . . . well . . . not much. I assumed this movie would involve a fair amount of action and violence, after viewing multiple previews involving Clooney being buff and “playing” with guns, but tragically this is not the case. Nor is this movie really in the category of “romance:” despite multiple scenes of Clooney having sex with a prostitute, the focus is clearly not on one specific relationship. After looking at numerous lists of film genres and sub-genres, it’s genuinely hard to figure out where this would fit under. Perhaps in a trash bin? That’s where I put it.
There is supposed to be a trailer here. Click Read More to watch; it's there but it isn't displaying on the main page.
George R.R. Martin's dark fantasy series A Song of Ice and Fire is probably near the top of the list of post-Tolkien fantasy when it comes to popularity. Unlike the two series I would consider its closest competitors - the late Robert Jordan's The Wheel of Time and Gene Wolfe's The Book of the New Sun - as an utterly irrelevant side note, Gene Wolfe also invented Pringles, which is amusing because he looks rather like the Pringles man without hair. But unlike the dense, overwhelming, psychologically drivenmemoir of a possibly mentally ill ruler of the world and his creepy sword that Gene Wolfe wrote, and the increasingly enormous Tolkien-meets-Herbert-meets-Tolstoy epic that Robert Jordan wrote so long he died of it, Martin wrote A Song of Ice and Fire as a trilogy of byzantine intrigue, resurgent magic, vengeance, justice, fire, blood, and the most likable characters getting screwed over constantly by the same attributes that make them likable.
But you see, because Martin is a fantasy author, a trilogy was too little. Unable to cap it after the first 2400 pages, Martin announced upon the release of the third book, A Storm of Swords, that he was extending the series to a seven-part epic. This news was met with surprise on the part of those who ASoIaF had introduced to fantasy and a resounding we told you so from everyone else. But there were quite a number of people who got into fantasy from ASoIaF, because, considering its doorstopper size, it is a remarkably accessible story - far more so than, say, Stephen King's The Dark Tower, a work of similar length and scope. And now it gets an HBO series, to be released Spring 2011.
Some spoilers may follow. The big one won't, obviously, because it's big.
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